How much should your band charge to play a show?

"How much should we charge?" is the question every band freezes on — right before they either lowball themselves out of rent money or quote a number that gets the email ignored. There's no sticker price for a show, but there is a method for landing on the right number, and it starts by realizing the real question isn't "what's our fee" — it's "what deal are we on, what's our draw worth, and what will we actually keep."

Your fee depends on the deal type — flat guarantee, door split, or guarantee-vs-percentage — and on your draw, the room, the night, and your spot on the bill. Local acts often earn a door share or small flat fee; regional draws pull low-to-mid hundreds plus a split. Never charge below your break-even.

First, what kind of deal is it?

"How much" depends entirely on the structure, and there are three:

• Flat guarantee — a fixed fee, paid regardless of turnout. Predictable, and what you quote when someone asks "what's your price."
• Door deal — no guarantee; you split ticket revenue with the venue, often after their costs. Higher ceiling, real risk.
• Guarantee vs. percentage (the "v. deal") — you get the guarantee or a cut of the door, whichever is higher. The standard touring structure once you're drawing.

Private events — weddings, corporate, some festivals — are almost always flat guarantees, and usually a large multiple of a club night, because the client is buying a specific outcome, not selling tickets. A bar gig and a wedding are two completely different pricing conversations. For how these actually settle line by line, we wrote tour settlement explained.

What actually sets your number?

Your fee isn't plucked from the air — it's a function of a few levers:

• Your draw. The single biggest one: how many paying people you bring. A band that reliably fills a room can name a price; a band that brings ten people can't, yet.
• The room. A 150-cap club and a 1,000-cap theatre support very different fees, because the money that pays you comes out of tickets sold.
• The night and the market. A Friday in a major city clears more than a Tuesday in a small town. Same band, different number.
• Your spot on the bill. Headliners set the fee and pay the support out of it; openers take a small cut, a flat local rate, or sometimes just the slot and the merch table.
• Who's paying. A DIY promoter splitting the door, a venue with a booking budget, and a private client with a fixed event budget all price completely differently.

How much do bands actually get paid?

Honest answer: it's a wide range, and anyone quoting one universal number is selling something. But roughly, by level:

• Local / opening slot: often a share of the door, a small flat fee, or — at the very bottom — the slot and whatever you sell at the merch table. This is the draw-building stage; the value is in the room you're building, not the check.
• Regional act with a real draw: a modest guarantee (often low-to-mid hundreds) plus a door split, because now you're bringing people the venue wouldn't have had.
• Established touring act: a genuine guarantee against a percentage, scaled to the rooms you fill.
• Private events: a flat fee that's usually several times a club night, set by the client's budget rather than ticket sales.

Treat these as shapes, not quotes — your market, genre, and draw move them a lot. The number that matters is your number, backed by your data.

Charge from your floor, not your hopes

Before you name a fee, know your break-even: what this show costs you in travel, crew, gear, and time. If a date can't clear that, it isn't a paid gig — it's a paid hobby, and you should at least know that going in. (Our tour-budgeting guide walks through fixed vs per-show costs and the break-even number.)

That floor also keeps you out of the classic trap: underpricing to be liked. Undercutting the going rate doesn't just cost you tonight — it drags down what every band after you can ask for. Price to build a draw, not to be the cheapest name on the bill.

Remember: the fee isn't the take-home

Here's what trips up every band quoting a number. A "$1,000 show" is not $1,000 in the band account. Between the headline and your take-home sit the venue cut, sound and production, support pay, agent commission, and your own costs. That same show can settle to $640. So when you're deciding what to charge, budget — and negotiate — on the settled net, not the poster figure.

Your draw is your price — so track it

The reason most bands can't confidently name a fee is that they don't have the one number that justifies it: how many people they actually draw. A promoter's whole job is managing risk. The band that walks in with "we sold 180 tickets and did $3 a head in merch last time we played this market" has already won the negotiation. Data beats confidence every time.

So the real answer to "how much should we charge?" is this: enough that the show clears your floor, in line with the deal and the room — and as much more as your draw can justify. And the only way to know your draw is to have tracked it.

Where ArtistHQ fits

This is exactly the record ArtistHQ keeps for you. Each show in your Shows pipeline holds its deal — guarantee, door split, or v-deal — alongside the venue, capacity, and date, so you're negotiating from your own history instead of guessing. The Money side resolves the settled net on each date (fee minus venue cut, agent, support, and costs), so you learn what you actually keep, not just what you were offered. And because every show carries its attendance and merch, your draw and per-head average build up over time — the exact figures that let you ask the next promoter for more and prove it. The managing shows guide covers the deal-to-settled flow.

The short version

1. Figure out the deal type first — flat guarantee, door split, or guarantee-vs-percentage.
2. Price against the room, the night, the market, and your spot on the bill.
3. Know your break-even, and never charge below it.
4. Negotiate on the settled net, not the headline fee.
5. Track your draw — it's the number that actually sets your price, and the one that lets you raise it.

There's no magic figure. But a band that knows its costs, its deal, and its draw never has to freeze on "how much should we charge?" again — because the number stops being a guess and starts being a fact you can point to.

Want the data that sets your price? Start free with ArtistHQ — track every show's deal, draw, and take-home on the free tier.